More Important Than That
by InSilva
Summary: Post-O13. Danny makes a decision. Danny/Rusty. One-shot now with epilogue.
1. Chapter 1

...More Important Than That... by InSilva

Summary: Post-O13. Danny makes a decision. Danny/Rusty. One-shot.

Disclaimer: Danny and Rusty know who they belong to. It isn't me.

* * *

"I'm sorry."

Danny studies the back of his nails for a moment and then looks up, smile in place.

"I see."

"You're awfully calm. Most people…well…"

Danny continues to smile. "Would it change anything if I got angry or upset?" And off the other man's reaction, "Didn't think so."

* * *

Rusty slides the key into the lock and opens the door to find Danny standing by the window, hands in pockets, looking out. He turns as Rusty closes the door.

"Isabel away?"

"Europe. Tess know you're here?"

Danny shakes his head.

Rusty frowns. This is something more than a casual call. There's something in Danny that he can't decipher. "So tell me."

"I want to do something I should have done long ago."

And he crosses the room purposefully, runs a hand through Rusty's hair, pulls him close and kisses him.

It is full-on, it is intense, it is from nowhere and it takes Rusty a second to react. As he starts to respond, he hears what Danny has said, what he _is_ saying, and suddenly he realises what the something is. He breaks free and stares at Danny, willing himself to be wrong but he is reading resignation and stoicism…

"How long?" Rusty asks, voice tight with emotion.

Danny shrugs. "Three months. Six. This year. Next year. Sometime."

_Never._

This draws a smile from Danny. "There's someone in Paris they think I should see."

Immediately, Rusty pulls his phone out and starts to punch in the number for the airline. Danny takes the phone off him.

"Paris can wait."

"Like hell it can."

"Rusty…" and that is full of what might have been.

Rusty's eyes are asking questions, seeking answers. "So no to Paris. What do you want to do?"

"Make up for lost time," Danny says firmly and pulls him close again.

* * *

They lie in bed in the Four Seasons, close to the Champs-Elysées, windows open, curtains blowing in a light breeze and morning sunshine.

Danny looks over at Rusty who is lost in thought, staring at the ceiling.

"What?"

A half-grin plays on Rusty's lips. "I'm trying to decide whether or not this counts as masturbation."

A deep chuckle comes from Danny. "Well, either way, it's certainly sinful."

Rusty looks at him long and hard and with meaning. "Yeah."

There is a silence for a moment and then Rusty asks, "So…this…"

"The pity sex?"

The half-grin reappears at the gallows humour. "I'm not objecting, you understand, I'm just curious as to the-"

"- frequency?" Danny rolls on to his front and looks down at Rusty. "Like I said. Lot of catching up to do."

* * *

Coffee in Mont-Martre.

"Did she understand?"

"Didn't tell her."

"Not anything?"

"Well, I started writing a note saying I was going to spend the rest of your life with you, spend every waking and sleeping moment with you, never, ever let you out of my sight again to the point where I'm going to be accompanying you to restaurant toilets, but somehow, I didn't think she'd probably get it. How did Tess take it?"

Danny's smile is wide. "Probably as well as can be expected, I guess."

"You haven't told her either, have you?"

Danny looks down at the coffee cup. "What's to tell? Life's too short for apologies."

* * *

That night, Rusty lies in bed and watches Danny sleeping. He has taken to waking up at random times of the night just to do this very thing.

It's not out of any maudlin self-pity: there will be time for tears later; much later, he hopes. It's not that he thinks Danny will steal away from his side when he's not watching; they've already had the conversation about the end and Rusty knows that Danny won't go it alone yet, though he also knows that later, when he can't fully hide the symptoms, when it starts to show in the charisma and the presence and the voice and the eyes and the smile, then, in spite of what Danny says now, he will try to. Rusty is very certain that that will not be happening: Danny is not going to be on his own.

Watching Danny sleep is about burning the impression of him deep into his mind, needless but necessary. Rusty doesn't want to miss a thing.

* * *

Danny is first to wake. He glances over at Rusty, still wrapped in sleep and marvels not for the first time at this man of grace and beauty, of ferocious loyalty, this man with the quicksilver mind at his side. It is, he feels, a privilege to have met Rusty, to know him, to have him in his life, entwined at levels they can't articulate, at levels they have yet to find the boundaries of.

He doesn't feel selfish in seeking Rusty out. He doesn't feel wrong in the physicality he has initiated. He doesn't feel bad about cutting out Isabel and Tess. It all feels right; so very, very right.

Rusty stirs and opens irresistible, sleepy eyes. Danny leans over and wakes him properly with a long, slow kiss.

They have all the time in the world.

* * *

A/N: tricky to summarise and impossible to title. I ended up with part of a Bill Shankly quote. Although that was about football. And this isn't. :-)


	2. Epilogue

A/N: this is by way of being an epilogue to a piece I wrote a long, long time ago. I also wrote _this _a long, long time ago. June 2008. And it was kind of sparked by NothingToulouse at the time. I never posted it but actually, maybe, now is an appropriate time. Not just because she just made me cry again. Swear she has shares in Kleenex.

For A.C.M. Who was awfully Danny about things.

**

* * *

**

All Good Things

They do everything they want to do together. Visit exotic places, eat terrific food, drink old whisky and invent new cocktails; even carry out a handful of short cons just because they can. Because it's like breathing.

They have many perfect days. Days when the sun would slide away and they would realise they were still talking with no idea of time. Days when they never leave the bed. Days when the end seems long and far away.

Then the not-so-perfect days begin. Days when there is lethargy and enforced silence and pain etched deep that is hidden but read anyway. Danny tries to go it alone as Rusty knew he would: Rusty finds him within ten minutes and Danny never tries again.

And finally, there are the days when they never leave the bedroom. When Rusty sits or lies next to Danny, always a hand on his, unable to share the burden, only able to offer his touch.

Danny can hide the pain no longer and Rusty keeps his gaze even as he witnesses the senseless deterioration.

Humour is present but sporadic. There is no anger, no denial, no wishing things were other than they are: they have no time, no energy to devote to such matters.

Now, Rusty lies and listens to Danny's shallow breathing and squeezes his hand. Words are effort. Even the unspoken ones. And reading him through the layer of pain is becoming difficult.

"Rusty?" There is a rasp to his voice.

"Yeah?"

"I think…" There is a pause and Rusty waits. "I think…I should like to go now."

He's promised himself he won't cry. Not in front of him. Not till later.

"I'm sorry…I'm just so very tired."

It doesn't need saying but at the same time it does. "Thank you. For everything." He hopes Danny will read in his voice what he wants him to and won't be able to see the rest.

Danny turns his head and looks at him and Rusty knows it was a faint hope. "That's my line."

Rusty leans over and kisses him, tenderly, for eternity and Danny smiles.

"It's been-"

"-the best."

And Danny closes his eyes, still smiling.

And after a while, there is stillness and there is silence and somewhere Rusty can hear his soul howl.


End file.
